Penny For Your Thoughts
by Princess Pinky
Summary: While Amy and Rory are stuck in bed with the chicken pox, Mels gets to have a little quality time with Brian.


**A/N:** Yeah, I've been on a ficlet spree. I originally intended to write a Brian and River fic, but then this came to me instead.

_**Penny For Your Thoughts**_

The curb of the sidewalk was scorching beneath her legs, separated only by the thin sheets of fabric that made up her black school uniform slacks. They soaked in the heat something terrible and Mels had been sitting there so long that she was afraid when she got up it might look like she'd piddled her trousers judging by the way the back of her legs were perspiring. But with her two best mates – her parents, but they didn't know that – out with the chicken pox, she had nothing better to do than just sit there, flicking a penny up in the air. The eightieth time she did it, it didn't come down again. She'd been so absorbed in her thoughts that she hadn't noticed how a shadow had fallen over her.

"Penny for your thoughts?"

"Mr. Williams," Mels returned, surprised and slightly annoyed with herself that she hadn't heard him approach.

The older man – he was a bit round in the face like the Pillsbury Dough Boy and with a thick head of faint strawberry blonde hair – smiled jovially and squatted down to take up a seat on the curb beside her. He flipped her penny in the air. "American penny," he observed. "You been?"

Mels flattened her tongue against her teeth and bit down on it, _hard_. She hated to think about America with its rat and garbage infested alleyways. Worse still was the orphanage that she'd called_ home_ for so many years with only the crazy old caretaker to keep her company. "Yeah, long time ago. I was just a baby."

Brian nodded, flipped the penny one more time and handed it back to her. "I don't like traveling myself," he said.

Mels scraped the penny out of his palm and cupped it in her own, absorbing the warmth. "I wish I could travel."

"If you could travel, where would you go?"

Mels threw her head backwards to stare at the great aqua sky. "I – I'd go to Berlin."

"Berlin?"

"Yeah," she said confidently. "I'd go to Berlin and make sure Hitler could never start World War Two. Wouldn't _you_?"

Brian contorted his face. "I don't know," he said earnestly. "If you erased Hitler, you'd be erasing a pretty big part of history."

"Exactly. Think about how many people it would save."

"Sure, but on the other side of the coin, who knows how many of us would be here today if history were different?"

Mels stared down at the tails end of her penny. She flipped it again. "Maybe that would be a good thing."

Two deep lines forged themselves between Brian's eyes aligning on the sides of his nose. "Mels, is something bothering you? Do you need to talk about something?"

Sensing that she'd let her guard down too much, Mels plastered a sugary smile on her lips. "Just bored. Sorry Mr. Williams." She reached around to press one hand to the curb and push herself up and winced, having underestimated how hot the cement was on skin-to-skin contact. She grunted and held back a curse word that was decades older than the twelve-year-old she was pretending to be. "I should have just gone home when you told me Rory was in bed with Amy's pox, but…" She flipped her penny again.

Brian looked over his shoulder at the house behind them: gray with a white picket fence, a velvety green lawn, and a small vegetable garden. "Sometimes you just don't want to go home."

"Yeah."

Brian shrugged. "I could give you a ride," he suggested. "How about we get an ice cream on the way, 'eh? Rory says you love sweets!"

Mels bit her lip. "What about Rory?"

"His mum's home, he'll be fine. He gets along better with her anyhow." Brian winced as he pushed himself up from the curb. "Whew! Today's a hot one, isn't it?"

"I do like ice cream," Mels smiled. She flipped her penny again and it landed in her palm, heads up.

"What's your favorite?"

Mels trailed behind him in the direction of the garage. "What's _yours_?"

"Well I used to love the Dastardly Mash, but-"

"_Really?"_ Mels blurted out. "Me too!"

Brian's brow furrowed. "But they stopped making that a few years after Rory was born." He frowned. "You must be thinking of something else," he laughed. "You could've only been, what? Two? Three?"

Mels clamped her fist around the penny in her palm. "Yeah, _must_ be thinking of something else," she muttered bitterly.

"Well don't worry," Brian comforted, sliding his arm around to her right shoulder to pat it in a fatherly way. "We'll find you something." He opened the passenger door for her. "Your parents do allow you to have sweets, don't they? I'm not going to get in trouble with them, am I?"

"What are 'Zuckers' if not sweet?" Mels batted her thick lashes. "But really, Mr. Williams…my 'parents' don't really care what I do or eat, so long as I…fulfill one long term goal."

"Well it's good to have goals, Mels. What's yours?"

Mels tossed her penny again as Brian got into driver's seat. She watched with intensity as it flipped and spun in the air.

"Penny in the air, huh?"

"What?"

"Penny in the air," he repeated. "Means you don't quite know yet."

The penny dropped again into Mels's palm. "No," she sighed, turning to stare out the window. "I do…and it's written in stone."


End file.
